The bright DSOs turn out to be OK, but the more diffusive DSO definite needs longer subs to show. The SNR for M51 was increased and the "side halo" of M57 was more apparent after stacking. But the improvement wasn't day & night.

On the other hand, for nebula, the stack may help a lot. That will be my next trials.

Puck, are these stacked in an on-the-fly software program prior to viewing the result as an enhanced near-live view, or are the 60 subs individually captured and viewed then saved then stacked, then viewed again?

Puck, are these stacked in an on-the-fly software program prior to viewing the result as an enhanced near-live view, or are the 60 subs individually captured and viewed then saved then stacked, then viewed again?

This is only a trial. I am still trying to appreciate any benefit that may come from stacking, which was kind of being proven in this trial. Even 4 subframe stacking was quite beneficial.

I had high hope on M57 stacking but the result was less impressive than what I hoped for. I think my focus needs to be refined since i was trying to avoid making the focusing mask. Now it is probably due.

So these results are stacked afterward. Not the on-the-fly stacking by DSS. I kind of figuring out what was essentially needed for Lodestar_C. The next step was to figure out how to prepare the images on-the-fly before sending to the DSS.

Off topic: have you managed to self-guide the LodestarC with SX M7C software?

I kind of giving up on that. Even we might make it work since it did work. I would hate to lose 1/2 integration time on the object. Also, I am using Orion SSAG for guiding and more importantly as a digital finder. The wide field from SSAG helps me to center on object much faster, since I am still doing only 2-star alignment which was not terribly accurate. :o

But I do had EQMOD and Astrototillas in mind for much better goto accuracy.

Off topic: have you managed to self-guide the LodestarC with SX M7C software?

I kind of giving up on that. Even we might make it work since it did work. I would hate to lose 1/2 integration time on the object.

ISn't the software using a long integration for the image , followed by a shorter integration for guiding? At least that's how it used to work once upon a time . So you'd give up 5-10% not half of the integration time , which would be a more reasonable trade-off.

Off topic: have you managed to self-guide the LodestarC with SX M7C software?

I kind of giving up on that. Even we might make it work since it did work. I would hate to lose 1/2 integration time on the object.

ISn't the software using a long integration for the image , followed by a shorter integration for guiding? At least that's how it used to work once upon a time . So you'd give up 5-10% not half of the integration time , which would be a more reasonable trade-off.

Matt, according to SX manual I've understood that the integration time will double when self-guiding.

Puck, I gave up too after trying different settings and I saw the same window with the same error.
Maybe it's impossible to self-guide the LodestarC without the actual STAR2000 control box.
As a side note, I've used the default guide settings with SX M7C software.